Paper short abstract:

The European Commission and its experts are an important frontline unit in the translation of “Europeaness” and of cultural policies. By focusing on the competition for the European Capital of Culture 2016 title, the paper analyses the centrality of European expertise and its limits.

Paper long abstract:

The paper argues that the European Commission is an important frontline unit in the translation of "Europeaness" and of cultural policies in Europe and beyond. This institution and its experts are key players in the diffusion of particular urban cultural policies. By focusing on the competition for the European Capital of Culture 2016 title in which 16 Spanish cities participated, the paper analyses the centrality of non-local European experts and of their skills and interrogates where does this preference come from, what is the role of external experts in the process of bidding for the ECoC and what sort of product and service are "European" experts offering which "local" experts cannot. In this process, external experts and/or their requirements and rules are central. The requirements and rules to win the title, especially the creation of the European dimension, are perceived by the actors involved in the bidding process as external, constraining and imposed from above. Moreover, this perception of requirements and of "Europeaness" as "external" is linked with their legality and codification in legislation. The development of the selection criteria, their codification in the law and other structural conditions led to the production of a highly polarized field of expertise and to the production of the "local - European expert" dichotomy. The paper documents the power and materiality of this dichotomy: the complex division of labour, responsibilities, benefits and disadvantages which are produced by this dichotomy and which also reinforce it.